27-28 March, the first relative warmth of the year, bright sun and temperatures touching 10 C on the 27th and a positively tropical 13 C on the 28th!

Still patches of snow lingering, shaded pools frozen, but there they were, eagerly awaited splashes of yellow fluttering along the byways ...and so opened the 2016 butterfly season, ten Brimstones on the 27th, another half dozen the following day and two Small Tortoiseshells too!

And with the sun, so too the first flowers of the season poking up in the meadows, my first incoming White Stork of the year, plus the first frog, the first bumblebee and the first ticks, three of the latter crawling up my leg!